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I don’t know how seriously I take ScreenRant’s ability to assess which TV characters have the best scary-to-cuddly arcs, but I will say they ranked the Hound well above Negan from The Walking Dead, which is saying something.

I would recommend TWD to Rory, but as we more… dedicated? …fans are aware, Rory’s not into horror films. Ends up covering his eyes against the jump scares and such. Can’t see him making an exception for gory TV shows. I have no room to talk. When I used to binge TWD, I’d make sure I was knitting or crocheting something so I could look down at strategic moments. Not gonna say Rory’s a gigantic fanny because that would be really mean (and untrue, except possibly when he’s pranking around on set), but I looked less like one when I could fake having to watch what I was doing with my hands. Not that it was fake. I really did have to watch. But you know what I mean.

Never did knit anything for Rory, though as I understand it, he did get quite a few knitted things from fans. Do I want to know? Probably not.

But hey big man, if you’re ever in the market for a handknitted hat (you’re not), you know where I am. I completely sympathize with having a huge cranium. I don’t know if the UK has the same hat-size system as the USA, but on this side of the pond I wear a seven and a half. As with shoes, designers of women’s hats assume we’re all on the small side. It’s so ridiculous.

Okay, I will stop nattering at y’all for now. It’s just been a while so I figured it was babble time.

For those of you who are newer, you may be surprised to learn that Sandor “The Hound” Clegane, Rory McCann’s most popular role, isn’t actually my favorite role he’s done. That label more properly applies to Kenny McLeod, the sweet guy in the wheelchair who featured in The Book Group in 2002-2003.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t like Rory as Clegane, of course.

So I just wanted to peek in and mention that I’ve been seeing reels of the Hound on Facebook and YouTube and I gotta say, if Rory had any notion that fans have forgotten him, I’m happy to report that is not the case. In fact, I just saw some comments today asserting that the Hound was the best character in the entire Game of Thrones show.

THE best. Not third-best, not tenth-best, not “hey he had a cool cameo that one time, didn’t he?” THE best.

Made my heart happy to see. Thought I’d pass on the happy. 💛🖤

Was dusting off my personal Twitter (I will never get used to calling it X) and started following Emptage Hallett and damned if they didn’t have a photo of my dude from his turn in The Damned.

Love the big man all wild-looking like this. I don’t know if I’ll be able to see the film ever, but it ups my chances if it’s ever released on DVD. Ahem.

Seeing Rory’s Instagram story today reminded me: I got a message the other day from someone, I have no idea who, claiming affiliation with him and advising me to report anyone I saw impersonating him. I didn’t reply, because for all I know THAT was an imposter pretending to be affiliated with him. Did not see a need to encourage the behavior. But in case she reads here: Yes ma’am, I did get your message and I assure you, I already report these assholes. No problemo.

But I’ll spell it out again: This is Rory McCann’s only legitimate Instagram account. Accept no substitutes. I don’t even have a Rory-related account there anymore. I shut it down a couple years ago.

A funny story related to this: When I had the fan Instagram, I got a direct message once from a lady wrestler. I can’t remember her name and probably wouldn’t tell you if I could. She thought I was Rory and thanked me for supporting her career. I knew he takes the nephews to professional wrestling matches, or he used to, so I figured that had something to do with it — he probably met her backstage or something. Also I suspect he’s into brown-eyed blondes, and she was at least one-half of that description. So that likely added to the fandom quotient. But anyway, I informed her that sorry, no, I wasn’t Rory, just a fan IG about him — which, by the way, it always stated that in my profile, which she would have had to see when she went to message me so I’m not sure what happened there. She went quiet after that. Not even an “oops, my bad.” I found the whole thing amusing anyway. If there was ANY flirtation there whatsoever, thank fuck she didn’t try it in the DMs. Talk about awkward…

But anyhoo… please stop DMing me about this shit. I don’t know who you are, I’m already aware that Rory-impersonation is a big problem (as it is for most celebrities actually), and I do report them when I see them. I suggest you all do the same. IG will take them down faster.

Wish they’d do something about the lunatic who took up my real-name handle and stole my photo. I have lost count of how many times I’ve reported that asshole. But I’m not important at all, so what can you do.

Does it count as a sighting if the big man himself is reporting it?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Rory McCann (@bigmanrorymccann)

There is definitely one other person aboard, which was also true when he went to Norway (he’s in Norway) five years ago. Probably the missus. Last time (or five years ago; he’s probably gone since) it was the guy from his home marina. I can’t fathom sailing a boat that size on that far of a trip all by yourself, though I’m sure there are people mad enough to try it. But also, someone would have to hold the phone to photograph him, sooooo.

I wonder if he’s just going because he likes Norway, or if there’s another concert, which is what it was five years ago. (Robert Plant! Who, I heard, actually invited him. Big Game of Thrones fan? Possibly.) Maybe we’ll hear at some point and maybe we won’t. Keeps it close to the vest, does oor Rory.

(Mwah.)

P.S. I actually saw his post ON THE SAME DAY. Not three weeks later. World fuckin’ record!

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[edit] Oh for fuck’s sake. I SAW his words “Throwback Thorsday” and my mind skated RIGHT over them. Know what this is? It’s THE trip to Norway from FIVE YEARS AGO.

Because I KNEW I had seen that sweater (jumper) before. He was wearing it then! I saw pics of him in it.

Okay I’m gonna go feel dumb now. Don’t mind me. I thought it was weird he was giving coordinates…

[singsong] Somebody’s gonna get suuuuued [/singsong]

But… If you ever wanted Rory McCann in your bed, I suppose this is as good a way as any, and better than most. For one thing, he can keep his marriage vows. Convenient!

Here’s the archived page because even if the seller’s not sued or taken down, eBay listings eventually expire. You’re welcome.

NO, I’m not getting this, though I could use some bedsheets. I would like his poster from this film but for bedsheets, if I ever do lose my everlovin’ mind, I’d prefer him in his thirties and a kilt. He got way too far into the bad-guy thing as he got older and, well, I still find him quite appealing, but… you know.

Anyway. How ’bout them Mets. I’m gonna go… get some more coffee. Yeah. That’s it.

All right! Everything that had been missing thanks to the hosting transfer is now back in. Except the header photos but we already saw I was being indecisive about those. But I’ve got a pretty one of Rory up from Alexander and he’ll do for now. Mrowl.

(Sorry, Mrs. McCann. That was a platonic mrowl.)

There are a couple things that make me absolutely happy with New Host besides the price (you might have missed this: I paid ahead for a year and it was less than fifty bucks all together). One, I can afford a security certificate for this site now. (The price is even righter than for the hosting.) Two, I don’t have to pay for domain privacy. I am not ready to get a post office box yet, though I want one, and domain privacy is the next best thing if my host is fucking cool and lets me have it for free. YAY.

Okay. I am going to tweak one or two more things here and then I’ll call it Good For Now. I already changed some things that I had missed even before the transfer. All better now. I’m sure I will find more things I overlooked eventually, but I think the worst stuff’s better.

There are more changes coming, but they’ll be building on or improving what’s here. So look forward to that.

I found I had not fixed the comment functioning: to wit, I hadn’t turned it off. Grumble. But I think we’re good now. I’ll know when this post publishes.

No I am not done adding the pics back in! I AM SO SORRY

I got sidetracked. That’s happening a lot lately. I’m also wrestling with depression, which is probably why. There is a specific reason for it which I never spell out anywhere because, on top of the shit I’ve already been handed in the past three years, this is a new wrinkle and me spelling it out might cause me local problems. So I won’t. There is nothing I can do about it anyway, if I’m right in my assessment of the situation.

Okay. But I’m in front of this thing now and I SHOULD, no promises, finish it today. Um, not FINISH finish — there’s always something to add, it seems — but at least get stuff back mostly to how it was? Right. There you go.

Am debating about the header though. Do I want to put that completely back how it was? Because I’ve long been contemplating taking it in a different direction. But I am nowhere near ready to try the other thing I wanted to try, so. I dunno. We’ll see.

[edit] Yep, that worked! No more comment box. Woohoo!

Okay y’all, it’s crunch time. I have everything lined up that I need to line up to be able to put images back where they’re supposed to be. The problem had not been as large as I had imagined it, I’ve just been dragging ass.

(I got a diabetes diagnosis back in March and I am actually doing far better with that now, but I think I’m still traumatized from the past three years, to state it baldly. Working on it, but I still have my moments. Lots of them.)

So I am setting up the new target for the domain DNS right now. What will happen is you will continue to see this website for most of the day tomorrow, and then tomorrow night about half an hour before midnight, shit will go down. Or you’ll load the website and it’ll just be a generic WordPress instance. DO NOT PANIC. That is just me needing to get in there and import the site file and also install the theme and the custom settings. If I’m feeling REALLY ambitious I’ll get at least a few header photos in too. NO PROMISES. That needs work anyway. (Yeah, what the fuck doesn’t here.)

Unless I’m exhausted tomorrow night, likely I’ll at least get the text-based content (blog posts, articles) set up. If I’m awake and frisky, I may get most of the work done. Let’s find out!

Okay. Back into the fray. Just wanted to let you know what to expect.

Yes, things are still up. Here is what I know from the past twenty-four hours’ experience with one site migration:

1. It takes twenty-four hours just to redirect a domain to new nameservers. I don’t remember it taking this long in the past, but it takes this long now. So when, NOT if, this site goes down, it’s going down hard. There is a workaround to make it take less time, but that looked like a lot of complicated bullshit (Old Host really does not want me to leave, apparently… tough shit, I’m done with their highway robbery) and so I’m letting it take the twenty-four hours. Which, it does sort itself out at the twenty-four hour mark. I checked. It’s fine. Just annoying for that twenty-four hours.

I could go ahead and set everything up on the other end in anticipation of stuff working properly 24 hours after I re-point the domain but until the domain name is pointing to the proper WordPress instance, I will not be able to see what the fuck I am doing without more complicated bullshit involved. I’m not interested in complicated bullshit. I have enough to deal with without deliberately adding more. See next item.

2. What I thought was just a media file I could export from Old Host and import into New Host is actually a file WordPress refuses to incorporate — odd, since WordPress is the software that generates that fucking file — and when I looked at the code it didn’t look like it contained actual images anyway. I have no idea what that was about but it’s not going to work, so thank god I am so lazy about keeping up with blogs because this particular site doesn’t have much on it yet. And I will still have that additional work to do adding in the image files it’s missing.

Now imagine what I’ll go through with this one. OMG

So even when it’s back up it’ll be broken for a bit. I’ll set it to rights as soon as I’ve got the spoons and time for it. This blog will import just fine but it’ll be missing images until I get around to that.

3. Along with the images not exporting and importing, I have to install this theme on the other end and then reconfigure it. I will TRY to see if there’s a configuration file I can just export and then import, but I don’t think so. It’s funny, because the structure of WordPress was based on a very old blogging platform called Greymatter, and you could export and import your custom layout settings in Greymatter. I should know. I used Greymatter. I miss it like hell — it was awesome. But this is what I’ve got now and it’ll be all I can do to avoid getting tangled up in AI. Long story short, I’ll probably have to fix the blog theme settings again and if I do have to do that, stuff’s gonna look funny for a bit.

I mean, this is a chance for me to rethink the header though, I suppose, if it comes down to that.

We’ll see how it goes.

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Timeline? Okay, I have until the second of July to absolutely get all this shit done before I’m expected to pay for another month at Old Host. They like to bill me on the 27th, but if I don’t put money on that card for them, they’ll go begging until the second. So I have lots of time, but I just want to get this done. Sooooo probably the next forty-eight hours?

Also, I need to warn you. At some point I will move the bigmanchronicles domain name itself because I want to move all my domains so as to have all on one fucking hosting account finally. I may do it soon, or I may wait another number of months until New Host has another domain sale, which also applies to domain transfers (you have to pay for another year in order to transfer a domain). I’m sure they have them periodically. When I do that, the site will be down for anything from a day to a week. If the latter, it’s gonna suck. You’ll hate it. I get regular daily visitors here in the double digits; I know you’ll hate it. I will too. BUT I WILL GIVE YOU PLENTY OF WARNING. I can’t rely on some site followers to warn all the other site followers, because you aren’t even all aware of one another. But hopefully my warning will reach enough of you that people don’t think I’ve quit.

I mean, quit on the big man? Come on now. This is me we’re talking about. 💙🤍💚

Also. While this shit’s going on, and the domain transfer too when it does, you can check here for updates. I’ll have ’em. No, this is not a ploy to get more eyeballs on my site. It’s just the logical place to go since that’s my home page and I’m the site admin here. Cool? Cool.

Don’t, like, send me text messages asking me when shit’s gonna be up, though. You’ll know it’s up when I do; first I’ll know is when it’s actually back up. They don’t send me notices or anything.

Okay, I think that’s it. If I think of anything else you probably need to know about this, I’ll post again. If this site disappears in the next couple days, the DNS settings change is taking place, so just hang on tight til it’s done. Twenty-four hours. That’s it. Promise.